Rose Namajunas is going to try something different ahead of her rematch against Joanna Jedrzejczyk.
“You can’t paint the Mona Lisa twice.” That was UFC strawweight queen Rose Namajunas’ reasoning for changing things up for UFC 223. ‘Thug’ is set to rematch Jedrzejczyk for the belt, just five months after she knocked the Polish powerhouse out in the first round at UFC 217.
Although the result of their first meeting was very decisive, Namajunas and her team aren’t being complacent ahead of part two. As her coach and fiancee Pat Barry explained on the Joe Rogan Experience MMA Show, he has some unorthodox sessions in mind for the champ.
“We’ve got a new idea for the second one. We’ve been seeing the lights and the touch this and that. Rose’s next evolution in her game is going to be a sniper-like accuracy. So we had an idea of having Rose punching tennis balls out of the air.”
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It seems strange and that’s because it is. Barry explained that there is no science behind it, the vision simply came to him in a dream.
“We have an idea for this next training camp where we’re going to be launching tennis balls at Rose and having her punch balls out of midair, Not hitting the ball, but standing there and throwing the jabs as the ball drops right in front of her. Throwing real punches.”
“I had a dream. It was weird, man. If we throw multiple balls at you in different ways and she can throw a real jab like boom, I think her reflexes for hitting someone right in the tooth while they’re moving is going to be elevated.”
Hmm… reminds us of someone.